The sun beats down hot on your face as you tightly grip the leather wrapped handle of the barely sharpened hunk of metal the armourer claimed was a sword. You and a half dozen men in blue tunics stare down at the same number of men in purple tunics. The cheers of the crowds are deafening as you look between your brothers arms. The man on your right reeks of piss and fear. The man on your left fumbles with the blade in his hand. Not a great start to your first bout as a gladiator.

The Master of Games calls a start and the men in purple rush forward towards your line. Half of your line turns tail and runs and the other half charge forward to meet either death or glory.

>Charge! >Flee!

-Welcome to Gladiator Quest, this is my first time running a quest so I decided to stick to something simple, we’re following the general shape of our history with some fantastical elements sprinkled in. We’ll use 1d100s for action rolls and for now, 1d6 for weapon damage. It’ll get a little more complicated as we move forward. Rolls will be best of three with crits overriding. Character generation will be done over the course of this thread, with each action choice defining who you will be playing as.-

You rush forward, a second behind the other three members of your line that found their guts, screaming at the top of your lungs. Hot sand shifts under your heel as you try to assess the fight.

You watch as two of the men in purple break off to chase the men that fled and two more pair up to face the man at the head of your charge. The man stands a head and half taller than anyone in the area and looks like he lifts cattle for fun. He spits into the sand as his sword collided with one of theirs and before you can see anything more one of the remaining men in purple lunges towards you.

You shift your weight and slide in the sand, using the momentum of your charge to carry you under what appears to be a much more expensive blade than your own.

The heat of the sand feels good against your exposed leg for the moment before you spring back to your feet. You hope that it’s the spray of sand from your slide brings forth a cheer from the crowd as you turn and face your opponent.

>>2307692Calling it for fighting defensively. And I swear I’ve never rolled that high on this board before. But your opponent isn’t very experienced so he’s at a negative modifier, so it wasn’t as bad as a 97

You stand your ground, setting your footing on the loose sand to weather your opponents attacks. He charges forward wildly swinging his short sword at you.

The first swing connects with the side of your blade. You feel the jolt of metal colliding all the way through your arm.

The second swing you leap back from, the tip of his blade centimeters from opening your stomach.

Third and fourth swings you block as well. You start to feel confident that you can hold him off.

The fifth swing changes that. Your blades connect again but he’s learned this time, or maybe he just got lucky. As you block his attack he takes advantage of the lack of a cross guard on your blade and slides his down the length of yours.

A thin strip of flesh is peeled from from your arm. Blood flows freely from the wound as you recoil backwards from the strike. You take a moment to assess yourself and the wound isn’t anywhere near as serious as it looks. Your opponent cheers with the crowd, distracted for a moment.

>Shoulder rush him, knock him to the ground and take the wind from him

>Turn the tide, switch to attacking him, taking advantage of his momentary distraction to put him on the defensive.

>Hang Back, keep letting him tire himself against your defenses and wait for a better time to strike

>>2307749>Turn the tide, switch to attacking him, taking advantage of his momentary distraction to put him on the defensive.A wound is a wound. Let's end this quickly, lest the strength bleed from our veins.

>>2307762I’m going to call it on attacking, but I’ve been called into work, I should be back in just a few hours. Meanwhile, I’ll let any other anons roll while I’m gone to improve how our gladiator’s attack goes.

You waste no time, ignoring the pain in your arm as you grip your sword tightly, you rush forward and lash out with your sword.

Your opponent panics, completely surprised by your sudden ferocity. His grip slackens as you swing and with a bit of luck you knock his sword free from his hand.

As the sword hits the soft powder of the sand you get an idea on the fly, you use the speed from rushing forward to attack to carry you through him. You lower your shoulder and smash it square into his chest. You hear his breath leave him and he crumples before you.

He starts to fall and you drive a knee upwards into his stomach, riding him to the ground. He squeals as you land on top of him with all of your weight. The fall jostles you but you regain your bearings before him and you lift your blade to his throat.

He begs in a toungue unfamiliar to you but you get the jist. He wants you to spare his life. The crowds around you cheer for blood.

You ease the tip of your sword through the man’s throat. At once his pleading ceases and is replaced with a bubbling gurgle. The fear in his eyes fade as you pull the sword free and his lifeblood pours into the hungry sand.

You stand and take stock of the arena. Two of the three men that faltered and ran are dead, but the third seems to be holding his own against his remaining attacker. You watch as the two men in blue who followed the giant of a man are cut down within moments of each other.

The giant of the man seems to have had no problem with his adversaries, you happen to catch the end of it as he spectacularly crushes the head of one of the men in purple with his bare hands. The two remaining men in purple that aren’t engaged notice this as well and both decide you seem to be a better target. The two men move quickly in your direction, you have a few moments to react before they’ll be on you.

>Fight! Two on one, they won’t expect a charge

>Run! Maybe you can get close to your huge friend or the remaining coward and one of them could help

>write-in

>>also, you could grab the man you killed’s sword if you wanted. It’s better than yours or you could dual wield

>>2308864Rolled 47 (1d100)>Take the sword and hide itusing the dead body for cover , wait still them get near - stand up and thrown that sword at one guy in the left and jump toward the other guy - in hope to kill him off or just damage/immobile enough to slow him down for the next moments

You get a crazy idea. You backpedal and purposely trip over the corpse of your last opponent as the two men rush towards you. You kick up as much sand as possible to obscure yourself and you grope for the dead man’s blade.

Your fingers brush the edge of sharp metal and you draw the second blade close to your body. The sand burns as it enters the open wound on your forearm. You bide your time for the two men to get close.

One man calls out. “I knew all of Battius’ men were cowards! Our trainers told us that he had a horrible eye for talent.”

You respond with sending your inferior blade hurtling out of the dust cloud at the man. The man screams out in pain but your unsure of how badly you hit him. Your second attacker laughs. “You stupid son of a whore, you’ve just disarmed yourself.”

Your instincts kick in as you leap forward and bring your new blade down on the man. Using the corpse of his friend as a spring board you jump into the air and with both hands bring your blade down in an overhead slice.

The blade connects with the meat of the man’s right arm, just outside of his shoulder, and your weight alongside of the force of your swing carry the blade through bone.

An arm clutching a sword drops to the sand followed seconds later by a screaming man. He clutches at his new stump and rolls in agony. Not having time to finish him yet you spin to face his compatriot.

Having recovered from the pain of the gouge your thrown sword had carved from his leg, the man stands in front of you unsteadily. He sneers at you but you can feel his fear from seeing what you did to the other man. He hesitates to see what you do.

>Bait him into attacking you. Try and goad him into making the first move.

>Bide your time, your giant of a friend should be done working the crowds soon enough and make his way over, or whoever wins the battle of the cowards near the edge of the arena

>Write-in

>>I didn’t have you guys roll damage because of the ambush idea and the good roll, I counted it as a max damage and added half damage again for an interesting idea. Any damage roll of 10 or higher is a dismemberment.

>>Also sorry for the slow response, someone in my building pulled a fire alarm

>>2315357You fucking wasted that you absolute knob sucker what the fuck is wrong with you? Are you fucked in the skull? Can you follow basic instruction? Where the fuck did OP say to roll? When did it crawl into your Neanderthal head that it was time to roll? Eat shit and die.

>>2310901>>2315357>>2315853Really happy to see that this is still going! Life got really crazy so updates for the next few days will be sporadic at best but Monday or Tuesday I should be able to get into a normal rhythm again. I’ll call it for that option and I’ll take the roll of 91 for it. Writing now.

You figure it worked once, why not try it again? You quickly reach down and grab the severed arm and pry steel free from its fingers.

With a flourish you flip the sword and catch it by the blade, which brings forth a new series of cheers from the crowds surrounding you.

You launch the blade at your last opponent and he tries to dive out of the way. The wound on his leg causes him to move just a fraction of a second too late and the blade leaves a line of white puckering flesh acrossed the small of his back. The wound quickly releases a trickle of blood.

You can tell that the thrown weapons aren’t doing much real damage but the crowd loves it. The man regains his footing and turns to face where you were standing but you’ve already darted forward, trying to close the distance and finish this quickly.

You skid to a stop just out of his reach and spray his face with sand. He sputters and curses and with his free hand he claws at his eyes. He waves his sword hand wildly, trying to keep you away.

You creep as quickly as you can around him while still staying quiet. The crowd screams, some trying to give away your location and some trying to further confuse the temporaryly blinded man. The conflicting information provides no help as you get close enough behind the man to wrap your arms around his neck.

He curses and struggles against you, not preparing to go down without a fight!

>Roll 1d100+10 against my roll to overpower him and snap his neck! He’ll be at a slight disadvantage on this roll.

>>2315853Also, I’m pretty easy going with the rolling. I’ll take the best of the first three for each action though, and I’ll be clearer that during combat I’ll take rolls with each action. It’s all good anon, no need to be angry! I won’t let good rolls, or bad, go to waste!

You desperately try to grip the man’s throat but a combination of his strength and his sweat work against you.

The two of you grapple for a moment but the man overpowers you and slips free from your attempted stranglehold. He swings wildly at you as he pulls free, his eyes still partially blinded by the grit of the sand.

His blade connects with your thigh, dangerously close to your loins, and hacks a small chunk of flesh free. You wince in pain as you leap backwards from the rest of his slashes.

With your free hand you probe the wound on your leg, keeping your sword up and pointed at your attacker. You find the important bits are thankfully intact but your hand comes up slick with your blood. The wound is smaller but deeper than the slice on your arm.

If you survive you’ll have to make sure the healers attend to your leg first. You strengthen your grip on your blade as you steady yourself for the next clash.

The moment you took to check yourself seems to have given your opponent the time he needed to clear his vision. Though his eyes are red and raw from the irritation he stares you down with fury evident in his eyes.

> Rush in! You can’t keep bleeding, you’ve got to end this quickly.

> Hold Back. Fighting defensively will help you preserve your strength so you can wait for the right moment to strike

>Run! Fall back and let someone else take your glory. You may suffer some shame but you’ll guarantee your survival... probably.

>>Roll 1d100 and I’ll take the best of three. I’ll count rolls independent of choices, so the choice with the most votes will get the highest roll paired with it. Also, your rolls are against mine.

You’ve seen men die from small wounds that they let bleed. You won’t be one of those men. You rush forward and launch a trio of attacks at your opponent.

The first attack is a short and quick chop to batter his sword out of your way. The sudden ferocity surprises the man and it jars his arm and forces him to take a step back in an effort to get his guard back up.

You were counting on the step backwards and you quickly shuffle forward and send a kick straight for his wounded thigh.

The kick connects and the man hisses with pain and stumbles, his footing unsure.

You see your opening and bring your sword down to meet the meat where his shoulder becomes his neck.

You weren’t expecting the man to fall, you must’ve kicked him harder than you thought or his leg is weaker than it seems. The fall throws off your aim and your sword instead connects with the man’s chest.

Luckily for him, his tunic takes the brunt of your strike but you pull your blade free and the tip is wet with fresh red blood.

He curses at you and sends a swipe towards you. It seems he’s not trying to hit you, just keep you back while he regains his footing, and you dodge his attack easily.

The crowd cheers and shouts and it takes a moment before you realize what they’re saying. “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!” The chant slowly spreads throughout the arena and you take a moment to glance around. Your giant of a friend is standing a short distance away watching you fight. And coming up behind him is the only other survivor in the arena.

One of the cowards in blue approaches him, he’s neither of the men who had stood by your side at the beginning but he is on your side at least. Once you kill your last opponent you’ll be able to rest.

>Keep the pressure on him! It’s time to finish this, all eyes are on you, show them you’re worthy of it

>Switch back to fighting defensively. He’s bleeding more than you, let him make a fool of himself in front of the crowds before you find an opening and finish it.